World Enough and Time

[daibhidc]

Woah.

Let's start with the flashforward regeneration teaser. Because I don't think it's a coincidence that the return of the Mondasian Cybermen features the Doctor regenerating in the snow. Are these events going to lead directly into "Tenth Planet"? (I'm not sure how I feel about that, see below.)

After that, we start out with Missy having fun swanning about being Doctor Who (and you can almost hear Moffatt thinking "I'm nearly done and there's one thing I still haven't trolled fandom about!") with her expendables Exposition and Comic Relief. The flashbacks to Bill's severe reservations about the plan work well here; while we're laughing at just how bad Missy is at being the Doctor, Bill reminds us that actually, letting her loose to do Doctory stuff has the potential to go much more drastically wrong than just her being unsuccessful.

(One trick I think they missed there; while the flashforward teaser is suitable dramatic, if they'd actually opened with Missy announcing she was Doctor Who, they could have done the same credits gag they did following Clara's claim to be the Doctor in "Death in Heaven". Or would it be more complicated to actually add Michelle Gomez's name to the opening credits rather than just swapping round?)

The patients were deeply creepy. Somehow knowing that they're going to be Cybermen and waiting for them to become Cybermen, and occasionally there's use of a word like "conversion" and "upgrade", but they're not Cybermen, and the Doctor hasn't made the connection to the Cybermen, is much more unsettling than if they'd just been Cybermen, and emphasises that the original versions are much more organic than the clanking metal monsters of later stories. I mean, I don't think Kit Pedler's weird hangup about bionic surgery is much of a thing these days, but creepy hospitals are always good.

So first they're just patients, in pain, with bags on their heads (and that fits neatly into what I was saying above, they don't have robot heads or anything, just a silvery bag with eyeholes), and a few bionic implants. And they have to use computers to speak. Then towards the end there's the introduction first of the metal cap, and then of the "handlebars", which we finally learn serve an actual purpose. All leading up to our first complete Cyberman ... and it's Bill.

I think I'll have to wait until next week before I decide if this contradicts the Big Finish audio "Spare Parts". At the moment, I'm leaning towards the idea that the station residents are building on ideas that are also being implemented back on their wandering planet, but this theory may well become impossible to support.

Even waiting for Saxon to show up, I didn't recognise Mr Razor at all! In retrospect, he wasn't listed in the Radio Times, which was a clue. (Although, given how retro Moffat's obviously feeling, I'm surprised the RT didn't list Razor as being played by ... um ... Jim Monsh, possibly?) But hey, if Missy herself didn't recognise him, what hope does anyone else have 8-)?

And next week .. modern Cybermen, just to add to the confusion! If they're the "Death in Heaven" version, will they still be loyal to Missy? Are we going to see a dark alliance between all the villains, (and it appears that Missy is now back in that category) or the Doctor in the middle of a war between two factions of Cybermen, both led by the Master?

Comments

[julesjones]

My new "I need to get more sleep" generated silliness is that rather than Gomez!Master regenerating into Simms!Master, Gomez plays the next regeneration of the Doctor. Or at least that The Moff wants to troll us with the possibility, what with the stuff about Gomez won't be returning as Missy.